Snapdragon 800, you say? Old hat, dear readers. Meet Snapdragon 801 - it's the Snapdragon 800 you've come to know and love, plus one. With Qualcomm's flagship mobile chip having had over a year since its announcement at CES 2013 - and no definitive successor in sight - it seems the world's #1 ARM chip vendor thought it would be wise to give the 800 a bit of a facelift for the first half of 2013.

The Snapdragon 801 really isn't all that different from the 800. In fact, it's almost exactly the same - but slightly better. While it packs the same Krait 400 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU, the 801 ups the clock speed ante on both to 2.5GHz and 578MHz (from 2.26GHz and 550MHz), respectively. It also adds a new eMMC interface, supporting the latest 5.0 standard, which rather conveniently meshes with SanDisk's new iNAND Extreme eMMC 5.0 flash memory announcement.

Qualcomm says the 801 will be appearing in devices "this quarter." Translation? Expect to see it today - in the Galaxy S5. And likely next month in the new HTC One. That also suggests to me that SanDisk's new NAND chips may be featured in these products as well - after all, much of the gains to be had from the 801 over the 800 are going to be thanks in large part to that new eMMC standard, not a couple hundred megahertz of clock speed.

Maybe. But I see the current Nexus 10 as a rush job. I think if Google is going to release a new one it probably will have a 3G option this time and by the time it comes out the new SD chips will be out. Q3/4 is my guess, so a SD1000?

CerealFTW

I would rather see a tegra k1 on it(or a faster gpu)

rck347

Not necessarily true. The S$ launched last year in the US was a Snapdragon 600 (without the integrated radios) 805 can easily be paired with a discrete modem, so it is not accurate that this will be mostly seen in tablets.

Otto Prime

interesting. GS5/HTC One won't be a big bump up from the G2 then. (LG fan here)

guess it's worth holding out for the 810.

Pro

Snapdragon 810? What? Tegra k1 is the future. Dat snapdragon 801, 805,810 is a waste. No improvment from last year. The only one chip which is good now is tegra k1

TylerChappell

nVidia has a history of poor support for its mobile chips, no one should really even care what nvidia is doing since Qualcomm puts them to shame year after year.

Frettfreak

Nvidia?? Really? I like what they are doing and all but they just are NOT the the chipset maker we were hoping they would be. They really dont support their chips well and i would actually make sure that the phone i get will not have one in it if you care about getting updates and such. They make a hell of a video card though!

rck347

Although 805 doesnt have a radio, it can be paired by a discrete modem (like in the s4 that launched in the US which was also similair) so the successor of 800 IS 805. It doesnt necceasirily mean this has to be used only in tablets.

Matthew Fry

The real question is, what is the motivation to do this when the 801 already has a radio?

rck347

The graphics is a huge step up. So is the new Krait 450.

Matthew Fry

Yeah but... based on the 610/615 announcement, an 810/815 is in development that is quad core and octa core respectively (probably with ARMv8 and the Adreno 420). It just seems like extra expenditure and wasted space vs the SoC with an integrated radio.

deltatux

The Snapdragon S4 Pro that's found in the Nexus 4 didn't come with an integrated baseband radio either, yet it was in many phones...

mukilane

It has already found its place in the Xperia Z2 Phone and Z2 Tablet, released today in the WMC

Sunset Rider

What's WMC?

You mean CMW right? Congress Mobile World?

mukilane

Sorry, It's MWC, Mobile World Congress. Had typed it wrongly

Mike Reid

>"first half of 2013"

2014 unless we time warped.

Sean Royce

>green texting.

impulse101

So basically its my 800 that I can overclock myself anyway with almost any kernel

Shaun Hammond

This one you could over clock more in theory.

impulse101

I doubt it. It's the same chip but just overclocked. They probably both have the same max clock speed before becoming unstable

silaslenz

It is probably the same design, but they where able to squeeze a higher frequency out of it with improved manufacturing.

Cory_S

They aren't script monkeys cranking up the frequency and calling it done. These are higher sampled chips. They will be able to handle the same clock at lower voltages than our 800s.

Jason Bailey

This is true, but for anyone already running a 800 this is a very incremental update.

Cory_S

Totally agree, although the sandisk NAND controller shouldn't be under estimated. The biggest bottleneck on devices is I/O performance.

Ender

What about the Snapdragon 805 that was announced recently?

Sean Royce

Apparently it doesn't have 3G/4G.

GraveUypo

oh, are we finally hitting the wall on mobile too?
that's boring :(
but expected. in fact we already rode the wave further than i thought we could.

Sunset Rider

You must not have heard about 64-bit chips and 8-core processors.

deltatux

Honestly, even quad core is not needed on phones. 8-core is for marketing still. 64-bit on the other hand is another story.

GraveUypo

You must not understand what hitting a wall means, or what 64 bit chips does differently from a 32bits one, or even the limitations of multithreading.

Eddy Witkamp

Typo? "...a bit of a facelift for the first half of 2013."
Should be 2014 ??

earth

Would rather have 14% improvement of power consumption at same performance of 800 than 14%+ performance improvement. Call it 800L.

fabitrader

Is just a marketing strategy to make people spend more and have the latest processors.

St1100

Does that mean that Sony and Samsung will bring out a newer flagship at second quarter making xperia z2 and galaxy s5 outdated?

Himmat Singh

No the S5 is the flagship using this 801. Samsung always releases the Note 6 months after the flagship S phone, so by then I am pretty sure the much-vaunted Snapdragon 805 will be out.

blindexecutioner

Good year to sit back and keep what you have.

oplix

the 1 stands for 1% increase in performance which coincidentally is Samsung's new yearly mobile business strategy going forward.